Al Silvani received both the watch and the chain of the present lot as a gift from Frank Sinatra, his close personal friend. The engraving on the back of the watch reads ?To Al ?Flight over America? Frank Sinatra Hollywood 1945. The name Frank Sinatra is spelled out vertcally by the links of the chain.
Provenance: From the Estate of Al Silvani.
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert ?Frank? Sinatra (December 12, 1915 ? May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era, Sinatra became a successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1954 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in ?From Here to Eternity.? He also starred in such musicals as ?High Society,? ?Guys and Dolls? and ?On the Town.? Sinatra was the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Al Silvani
Al Silvani, born March 26, 1910, was an American boxing trainer and actor. He was a close personal friend of Frank Sinatra and spent time out with Sinatra's ?Rat Pack.? He appeared in a number of Sinatra?s movies, including ?Ocean's Eleven,? ?From Here to Eternity? and ?Assault on a Queen.? As one of the most sought-after trainers in the business, Silvani trained over twenty world champions, including Jake LaMotta and Rocky Graziano. He played himself in the 1976 motion picture ?Rocky? and served as a technical advisor in ?Rocky II? and ?Raging Bull.? In 1980, he was inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame.
The name "Rat Pack" was first used to refer to a group of popular entertainers in Hollywood that originally were informally organized around Humphrey Bogart (including the young Frank Sinatra). In the mid-1960s it was the name used by the press and the general public to refer to a group featuring Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, who appeared together on stage and in films in the early 1960s, including the movie ?Ocean's Eleven.? The Rat Pack often performed in Las Vegas, Nevada, and were instrumental in the rise of Las Vegas as a popular entertainment destination. They played an important role in the desegregation of Las Vegas hotels and casinos in the early 1960s. Sinatra and the others refused to play in or patronize establishments that did not give full service to African-American entertainers, including Sammy Davis, Jr. Once Rat Pack appearances became popular and the subject of media attention, the Las Vegas properties were forced to abandon their segregationist policies.